You need to read this. I'm serious. Read it ALL THE WAY THROUGH. This is based on data, not vibes, not ideology, not vague stuff someone read in college about post-colonialism.
People in this country are being radicalized towards the right by social media. They are being deliberately misinformed, made less able to pay attention, read, or think critically. It is killing us.
You, as an individual, have the power to reject algorithmically-generated content. You have the power to use your brain, even though it's hard, to read a book, to read things thoroughly, to do schoolwork, to rewire your attention. I would argue that you have a moral duty to do so, because the material consequences of ignorance are mortal.
People, right now, are dying preventable deaths because the majority of people in the United States refuse to read books or longform text, engage with complex issues in good faith, or think deeply about social problems, and it led them to vote Republican. People are dying of diseases that were eradicated. People are going to die because their benefits have been taken away. People are dying in detention centers for the "crime" of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'm serious, you have to take it upon yourself to reject this cultural shift. I am pleading. I am begging. Please don't make it politically expedient to keep shifting to the right, because this right here? Is fucking poison:
"This isn’t necessarily as ideologically restrictive as people think. If you look at moderates — and especially nonwhite moderates — a bunch of them hold very progressive views on a variety of economic and social issues. A very large fraction of Trump voters identify as pro-choice. We’ve seen populist economic messaging do very well in our testing with voters of all kinds. But I think that there are also some big cultural divides between highly educated people who live in cities and everybody else. And to the extent that we make the cultural signifiers of these highly educated people the face and the brand of our party, that is going to make everyone else turn against us. "
If we continue down this road of "Democrats are perceived as effete, over-educated elites, so we need to pander to the least-educated people in the country to get votes" in this sneering, insecure way, we will never, ever have a kinder world.
People who are well-informed are left-leaning. I don't know what else to tell you. I don't know how to change an anti-intellectual culture on my own, and I'm posting this on The Intellectual Hellsite, but I do know that if I can actively choose to lean into intellectualism, and be secure in myself and HAPPY and fulfilled, and maybe, just maybe, people will want to emulate that a little bit.
The official English version of the Apothecary Diaries translation is rather notorious for being full of problems. The fan compiled document of mistranslations focuses primarily on outright errors and information that has been cut or altered, generally keeping to being an objective record of these issues.
What a compilation of mistakes can't provide, though, is an account of how beautiful and evocative Hyuuganatsu's writing is. Her work is woven with symbolism, poetry, foreshadowing, and cultural references that are simply lost in a direct translation.
There's plenty of straightforward re-translations of the text out there-- so what I'd like to do is try to honor Hyuuganatsu's prose in English. Understanding and communicating intent, tone, and general artistry, even making the occasional addition to the text for clarification, or to explain iconography that the Western audience is very likely to be unfamiliar with.
Since the Bench Scene of Light Novel 5 and the choke it contains is so notoriously mistranslated, I've spent the last few weeks working on this part. I have downright STUDIED this scene like a SCHOLAR so I can properly retell it in English.
In fact, I've even created a document with line-by-line annotations, in case you're curious! I took lots of notes for the sake of sharing them with anyone who'd appreciate a deeper dive, plus some conjecture about my own reading of the moment. If you have any further questions, please feel free to shoot me an ask here on Tumblr.
Thank you to everyone who helped me with this crazy little project! I couldn't have done this without my friends and acquaintances!
I hope that this clarifies the intent of the scene in the broader narrative, I hope that this makes for a generally better read, and most of all, I hope you enjoy this as much as we did :D
(You can either open up the Cryptpad document linked above, or hit "read more.")
(Man, it’s cold.)
Maomao shivered and clutched her thin gauze shawl, but it didn’t make her feel any warmer. Sure enough, not having another drink was something she’d come to regret.
It would have been warmer inside the building, but in truth, she’d rather just suffer out here than go back in and deal with all that hot air. Especially from Lahan. He kept begging her to perform impromptu veterinary care on the lion. She did worry about what would happen to the animal now that the poor thing had its muzzle smashed, but that didn’t mean she was going to risk being bitten in half to help it. Yeah, it was a tragedy that the pitiful creature had been starving away in a cage, but Maomao was also a pitiful creature and she was the one who almost got eaten tonight.
He just wouldn’t stop. Lahan lamented that the lion was a beautiful array of values, complained that the collapsed nose was disrupting that sequence, going on and on about how it was “a waste,” and when he just wouldn’t stop badgering her into trying to fix it, she fled.
Apparently, even a giant, shaggy cat was simply a string of numbers in that Freaklet’s eyes.
Still shivering, Maomao sat down on the bench at the front of the garden. Finally alone and unwatched, she took the opportunity to huddle up, hugging her knees and nestling her chin atop them.
The sky stretches beyond the horizon, taking her thoughts with it. With no moon in sight, the stars twinkle and beam all the brighter. Her mind drifts to three brilliant stars in the void, drawing the summer triangle with its furthest point on the opposite side of the milky way. Were those lights truly the souls of starcrossed lovers, kept apart by the celestial river?
(I wish this party would just end already.)
As she considered ways she could sneak back to Gyoku-en’s estate unnoticed, the sound of footsteps crept up behind her.
"Your honorable cousin is urgently looking for you."
"May I suggest that you urgently ignore him, then?"
It seemed like she wasn’t the only one who took advantage of the chaos to dodge social obligations.
She pressed, ”Don’t you have work you should be doing?”
Being outperformed during all the action earlier may have made him seem rather limp, but now and then, he could rise to the occasion. Yes, Basen might have taken the lion’s share tonight, but Maomao expected this man could probably provide another little scrap or two.
“Are you hoping I’ll work myself to death?”
“Not at all.”
Jinshi, who had been shirking his work, regarded her with a suspicious pout. It looked like he believed her just as much as he’d believe a charging barbarian hoard only wanted a friendly chat, but he sat beside her all the same. The bench creaked beneath his weight. He set down an object between them– on closer inspection, Maomao recognized it as a shard of scrap iron.
“Something was wrong with the metal, just like Basen said. High quality iron wouldn’t have shattered like this.”
There are various ways to strengthen metals, and various ways to weaken them as well. A flaw in the process of smelting iron could fill it internally with dozens of tiny air bubbles, making it deceptively brittle.
“It’s as if those bars were forged to be broken.”
“An unsettling thought.”
That wasn’t the only suspicious detail nagging at her mind, either. That lion made a beeline right for Lishu. If anything, it was like Maomao just got in the way of its real target. Why?
Because the lion was starving and Lishu was simply the first thing it went for?
That didn’t seem right…
Because Lishu had a full plate of meat?
That didn’t seem right, either…
It was something else that kept bothering her. The odor.
That perfume had to be it. The so-called “accident” and the stench. You didn’t need a sense of smell as sharp as Maomao’s to notice that Lishu absolutely reeked of that musk. To such a deadly predator, a scent that overwhelming would have been a punch in the nose.
So if the lion had a strong reaction to that smell, strong enough to lunge at the sabotaged cage–
“……”
“......Hey! Don’t just go quiet on me!”
Jinshi’s voice broke Maomao’s train of thought, but not her silence. This guy should know by now that she was never the one to take the initiative in conversation, and yet, he kept insisting on being by her side. What did he expect? Why were his brows knitted with such desperate emotion? He should just get back to work instead of fooling around!
“You just want to tell me to get back to work, don’t you?”
“No, not at all.”
Every now and then, this man demonstrated the uncanny ability to sense what she was thinking. It was quite bothersome. She felt a cringe but kept her face serving tranquility.
He sighed, “Why go back, anyway? It’s either nothing but endless paperwork, or else get besieged by fawning women.”
"Don't say that too loud. The dregs of high society would demand restitution if they heard you complaining about being too popular."
A man of wealth, status, and good looks to boot– Jinshi was above and beyond. Truly divine, in every sense of the word. On a dark, moonless night like this one, where you could be accosted from any shady corner… Well, he ought to be prepared.
“They all want to suck me dry of the imperial blood in one way or another, don’t they?”
Was he saying they meant to bleed him for his influence in the court, or was it just innuendo about how they wanted to breed him like a prized studhorse? She wasn't sure.
“I’d say at least half of it is just your beautiful face.”
“Don’t say that.”
Jinshi’s expression twisted, jaw tight, like he was chewing on a bitter bug. This was a man of divine beauty, and somehow, he regarded this blessing as a curse. With his right hand, he traces the scar on his cheek, the one part of his face where the perfection wanes. Everyone in the entire empire grieved the wound as a national tragedy, so was it just her imagination that he treasured it?
Not that Maomao disliked it, either. Human beings aren’t supposed to be perfect. In Jinshi’s case, his outward appearance had been so immaculately tailored that his own face didn’t suit his true self. Logically speaking, this was simply the mending of an error. A restitch overdue, even.
What was so wrong with adjusting something mismatched at birth?
Besides. It might be a scratch in a conspicuous spot on the cheek, but it was also her dad's handiwork. Every time she'd stroked it while applying medicine or makeup, she'd admired how neatly it was healing. The sensation under her fingertips was fading– slowly but steadily.
He spoke again, “Maybe I should say I burned my face and apply new scars every time I go out in public.”
“No, the color will eventually stain,” Maomao's gaze flicked over the powder he was using to cover up the reddish-pink blemish the sticky makeup left behind. That's what happened when you used it for about twenty days straight.
She had a suggestion though, “If it's burns you want, I'll help you.”
If he was going to do it anyway, she may as well take the chance to test out this new burn ointment recipe she’d been concocting.
“Stop that,” He dismissed, “Gaoshun would die before I even finished roasting. The makeup’s a bit of a bother, but, well… easy. It was so easy it made the rest easy, too. All along the way, I was free from worry.”
Between how none of the village girls wanted to take a pass at the dour “burn victim,” and how the journey liberated him from his chronic desk job, he had plenty of reasons to be over the moon. Meanwhile, Maomao had nothing to do except watch the scenery roll by. AND all the sitting made her butt hurt. Even just thinking about the return journey was making her start to feel… heavy.
“It seems like you didn’t like the carriage very much, did you?” There was that mind-reading ability again, “Would you like to practice riding a horse?”
“I’d really rather just be able to take the bed.”
Maomao had already modified the carriage for the journey by making herself a bed. The problem was, everyone else also liked her bed. Whenever she went to use it, chances were that some lump was already lounging in it.
“Aah, yes. I’m also hoping to sleep more comfortably.”
Her belly flipped to a rolling boil. That was a BOLD thing to say when he was the biggest lump of them all. He'd go riding around on the horses, enjoying the great outdoors, then come flop down on HER bed whenever he got bored. Easy for him to be so “free from worry” when he was always snug as a bug in a rug!
“After all, I’m on His Majesty’s imperial orders to enjoy this trip. And,”
Jinshi flashed a small, wry smile,
“I was told to choose carefully.”
If he was told to choose carefully, that could only mean he’d been told to choose a bride. This bounty of women had been gathered for that purpose. Whichever one he picked, a reaction from the court would follow. The nation’s future, its direction, the fate of the empire itself, laid upon the fruit of his choice.
Would he strengthen ties with neighboring countries? Would he join forces with domestic factions at home? Either way, his position would shift depending on his choice. Additionally, the intention behind hosting such an event in Sei-Yi-Shu was loud and clear: Deepen your ties with the west. That would explain why Uryuu had brought along his other daughter, too.
‘Who will he choose?’
No matter. His choice didn’t involve her. Maomao would always behave in accordance with what was expected in her role as practitioner alone. Nothing less, and nothing more.
Or, well, behaving was the plan…
But the instant it occurred to her that their fingertips had connected, her hand had already been seized. His grasping hand pressed desperately against hers, palms together, fingers intertwined. It was a full size bigger than her own, rough and calloused. Long fingers ensnared Maomao’s hand, as if he intended to hold on forever.
“Sir, could you ever be obliged to let go?”
“If I let go, wouldn’t you keep trying to run away?”
“Do you plan to do something I’d want to run away from?”
“Sometimes I just want to smack you!”
Jinshi’s gaze sought Maomao like an animal tracking prey. That look, reminiscent of a starving, stray dog, belonged to neither the eunuch official nor the imperial prince. If it belonged to anyone, it was someone else entirely.
“Good sir, a mark on the face would surely draw attention. I humbly request that you smack me somewhere less conspicuous."
“I wouldn’t actually hit you.”
“Yeah, I’m aware.”
The noble Jinshi wasn’t the type to lay his hands on women, children, and other innocents. Well, wait– actually, he would lay his hands on her; whenever she’d swill down something toxic, he’d either force an emetic down her throat to clean it out, or wrestle her until she spit it up.
“At best, you’ll twist my arm and choke me out until I’ve spilled my guts.”
“That's on you! Why do you keep trying to poison yourself?!"
She shrugged, “I wouldn’t know…”
The saying goes that “experience makes the best teacher,” but it seemed that Maomao was the only one putting that into practice. People thought she was so much smarter than them, but she wasn’t. She simply had her specialized interests, and that would cause her to put more thought into learning about them. Even worse, it always seemed like she had more thoughts than feelings. Joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure– she felt those, just… less than other humans, apparently.
And yet, there were emotions that everyone else seemed to have that she didn’t understand.
His pulse throbbed through her palm, echoed in her veins. Sweat slicked their shared touch. She looked up at lowered lashes. Eyes dark as the moonless night fixed on her with intent, so close that Maomao could see herself reflected upon them.
The courtesans had a saying, thus had she heard; “You know hell when you know it.”
The customers had a saying in turn, thus had she heard; “That’s why we come here, to get it.”
That unspeakable word was written with four letters in the west, thirteen strokes of a brush in the east, and in both it bore a slot where a heart could go. It was branded vulgar. It was dismissed as a toy in a game. It was something that she’d heard some say they couldn't live without.
Jinshi’s free hand reached up to the side of Maomao’s head. His fingertips gently rounded the curve of her ear, brushing a wisp of hair down, down to the nape of her neck where his touch came to a sudden halt.
“You’re really wearing it, after all.”
His hand hovered where her hair was tied up in the kanzashi. Pure silver of the finest make, crafted into a motif of poppies under the light of the moon. She’d assumed Lahan prepared it, but apparently, she’d assumed wrong.
That explained why everyone was so interested in her hairstick.
"Oh, was this from you, sir? I already don’t know how to feel about the moon, but the poppies are just in poor taste."
The flowers reminded her of the White Lady, Pai Niangniang. Though they had a superficial resemblance to the common field poppy that grew in disturbed soil like a weed, the much larger opium poppy was cultivated for making drugs– opiates.
“No more. Don’t ruin the moment. Had it made before the journey. Made sure you’d have a replacement for the old one.”
Jinshi’s hum came from above. His chin rested atop her head, hooked on her crown. He toyed with her hair, a lock between his fingertips, idly twirling round and round. Warm breath fanned her neck from a deep, dreamy sigh. Anyone who happened to pass by would have mistaken them for a couple in an amorous embrace, and Maomao was struck by the concern that an onlooker would get the wrong idea.
“Master Jinshi, you have to move on.”
"What do you mean?”
“What would you do if someone saw this?”
Maomao wasn’t the only little kitty who might slink away from all the commotion. This spot was hidden away from the banquet’s firelight, protected from prying eyes by the trees and shadows, but that didn’t mean no one could stumble across them. He had to know the reason why he was brought here in the first place.
“It's been settled that Lady Lishu is not your niece by blood. You needn't worry about the effects of inbreeding.”
Maomao’s words let loose with all the cold detachment of shooting an arrow. Jinshi winced like it was a direct hit.
Nevertheless, she continued, “Surely you understand that’s the safest option?”
Forget about that whole affair about Basen and Lishu earlier. Just, pretend it never happened. Even if there was a desultory spark, a tiny little sprout between them– It could never have meaning. Never be more than a painful waste of time. Best to nip it in the bud. Safest for it to have never existed at all.
“To hell with safe!”
The chill grazed her ear as his voice went cold as a blade. The playful twirling of her hair came to an end, one hand sliding down her nape, circling round her throat. Long fingers across the whole of her neck that began applying pressure.
“Too much…”
“Too much what?”
Just too much! Pressure, pain, whatever, what did it matter what it was too much of? Yet, he only pressed harder. Entwined fingers seized her hand upward, twisting her arm behind her back. Lunatic! Moron! Freak! Her joint was going to pop right out of the socket! Neck in the gallows of his grip, her arm kinked around the back, Maomao's face was painted with anguish. Her jaw flung open like a flapping fish, tilting back to glub for any bit of breath she could catch. All her dignity had been drained out of her dumb face, and worse, Jinshi was looking down at her from above, admiring his view of her silly, stupid expression, and then—
"……"
Maomao inhaled his heavensent air with raga– the lust of a glutton who indulges in desire. The scent of flowers tickled her nose. She’d expected the divinity of peach blossoms in early spring, but instead this was tea jasmine, simple and sincere. It wasn’t what she’d imagined for the breath of a divine envoy.
His thin lips were slightly dry and just a bit hot.
The hand that choked her neck was now relaxed to cradle her head, and the one that twisted her arm loosened to take her hips in an intimate embrace.
However long they stayed like that, she didn't know. They lingered for exactly as long as he felt it would take for his breath to fill her lungs, pass through her heart, and circulate through every vein of her body. It was only then that he broke the kiss to leer down at her, a glimmer of victory in his gaze.
Tears that had welled up in her eyes, tears he’d squeezed out of her, were now being tenderly swept away by his thumb. Inexplicable fury surged out instead.
“...if you’re going to kill me, have the decency to do it with some venom.”
“I said I would never do that to you,” Jinshi’s fingers traced Maomao’s lips, “and I won’t let you poison yourself either.”
“So,” He declared, “Don’t even try to claim you didn’t know you were one of the candidates. You were clearly prepared to play dumb until the bitter end.”
He wasn’t done, “And what was that guy about, anyway? It’s not like you to dance along to someone else’s tune.”
So he had been watching them, then. Intently.
“That was just the cost of a cheap drink.”
Maomao tried to twist away to avoid his searching gaze, but she couldn't, not while he kept her head locked in his grasp. Her mind was running like her body couldn’t, spiralling around and around down to a single urge; run! Run! Run away! Until escape was the only thing she could think of.
She blurted out, “There’s no good in picking a nobody like me!”
“Lahan escorted you here, didn’t he? Everyone will take this as your debut.”
Okay, fine. She could see Jinshi had a point. Maybe deploying her as the La Clan’s marriage candidate was the plan from the start as Lahan’s opening gambit. Ew. Her belly revolted just thinking about it. She would have to crush his toes later.
That aside. If the prince picked a blood relative of the La Clan… well, among the Named Clans, the La Clan was unique in that it maintained a strong sense of neutrality between the factions at court. In that sense, if you were to say this was a safe choice, you probably wouldn’t be wrong. Exactly like Rikuson said earlier. However! They’d all left out a crucial point on the board!
“You’d have to face that man as your adversary.”
She was, of course, referring to the old crank with the monocle. Just imagine the chaos he would have caused if he’d been present! He would have unleashed utter pandemonium so fierce that the escaped lion would have looked like a kitten in comparison, no doubt about it. That was sure to put him off, and she prepared herself to watch Jinshi waver-- but his resolve only faltered for an instant.
"...you agreed to pick up where we left off, didn’t you?"
Once again, she found herself seized. His body pinned hers against the bench, pressing into her so fully that even her hair felt quashed into place. Something slicker than his breath negotiated its way past her lips, sweeping away any remnants of protest. Up close, she could see that his obsidian eyes had gone feral. Brighter than any star even through their dusky haze, both shaded and fervent at once. This was a man who could choose to live a life without want; and yet, within him were the occasional hunger pangs of wanting. He was starving for something and to satisfy this craving was all he wanted.
(He should just choose someone else.)
That which he craved could surely be found within anyone else he’d been provided. A countless number of people were desperate to be the ones providing! Why was he going out of his way to beg at the altar of a broken being for what she didn’t have and couldn’t grant?
Her anxious mind was still urging her to run. Devastation was surely looming. She wanted to evade disaster, but the wild eyes of the hound wouldn’t let her escape. He had his own raga, his all-consuming desire, driving him to hunt what shouldn’t exist. He would rip her apart and find nothing there. Maomao could only meet his feral gaze with the hollow eyes of an effigy.
It only served to stoke the stray dog’s desperation, pressing ever heavier, rooting even deeper.
(This time I might be smothered to death.)
She’d been mounted by a man nearly twice her size. Yet, she knew that courtesans just had to suck it up when they took on clients more than thrice their weight class. They couldn’t whine about it being “too much.” If she coughed up a pathetic complaint like that in front of her beloved sister Pairin, Guru of the Pleasure Garden, do you know what she’d say?
“Even a respected visitor mustn’t be allowed to take the lead. This skill will make or break your value in this house!”
And she’d lay out that teaching in her most seductive tone, accompanied by an erotic display. This was a memory from when she’d been initiated into the doctrines of the courtesan, in spite of the childish fits she’d pitched at the time.
“......”
Maybe it would have been better to just keep laying there, let him see for himself that she was a doll with nothing but stuffing inside. Maybe that would have been worse. Who knows. The only thing we can know is this; Remembering Pairin’s precept also meant remembering everything Pairin prepared her for. Everything she’d had to do to get out of that locked room, every submission she made to get that passing grade, every tear she’d just barely stopped from spilling out when she’d finally performed well enough to earn her big sister’s satisfaction.
It had been drilled into her until reluctance was replaced by reflex.
That’s why she insisted that the author say this clearly; 猫猫に罪はない.
And that’s why the translator now says it clearly (but in English this time); Maomao did nothing wrong.
And what does that mean? Well! It means, when push came to shove–
Maomao sucked up all the saliva he’d pooled in her mouth and swallowed it in one gulp. She parted her lips, a lure, and when the opponent had been reeled into her feint, she slid her tongue across enemy lines.
Wonder and delight sprang to Jinshi’s face, but he didn’t last very long. His body responded with a twitch, and then it twitched again, which caused his hold on Maomao to soften. Enough to turn the tables on him– or maybe the bench.
We’ll say it again; Maomao is innocent of any crime. This act was, legally, vis major– the Will of Heaven.
In her attempt to pay him back, Maomao mistakenly used all of her Pleasure Garden training on Jinshi, subjecting him to an artisanal whore’s finest techniques. Oops!
Seeing people talk about the Trolley Problem on here is always... interesting. Because the Trolley Problem isn't meant to be a narrative trope, and it's not meant to have a "right" answer, and it's not meant to be an immediately realistic scenario that you can argue your way out of, it's not meant to make you feel proud that you picked the "right answer". It's an ethics thought experiment. "Somebody has to die and you can't save everyone" needs to be taken as a given premise in order to get at what the Trolley Problem is making you consider, which is how you allocate value of people's lives, something that it's very, very hard to get people to address in any circumstances but extremely contrived ones.
Because the way I was taught it, the Trolley Problem isn't a one-and-done thing in isolation - its classic form is there to set up the variations and test where your values change.
The classic form is: a runaway trolley is careening down the tracks. The brakes are broken, it can't be stopped. In its path, five people are tied to the tracks, and if it's left to its own devices, the trolley will run over them and kill them. BUT you have the option to pull a lever and send the trolley down a different track. On that track, one person is tied to the tracks. As it stands Right Now, if you do nothing, the five people will die, and the one person will live. But you can pull the lever and switch the trolley's track so that the one person will die, and the five will live. The trolley is approaching and you don't have time to untie anyone from the tracks. Would you pull the lever?
In its base form, the question is fairly simple, and it's about if the capacity to intervene makes you morally obligated to intervene, and if doing nothing and letting more people die is better or worse than personally intervening to make it so that fewer people die, but one person will die who without your intervention would otherwise have lived.
But that's even one iteration of the problem, because most people say yes - saving five people and sacrificing one is, overall, better than saving one person and sacrificing five.
And the real value of the Trolley Problem comes after you've said, yes, I'd pull the lever.
You've established that you believe intervening to save five people even if that means sacrificing one person is the more morally correct option. Then the question-asker hits you with,
... what if the five people were strangers, and the one person was your mom/your spouse/your sister/your best friend? Would you pull the lever then?
... what if the five people were adults, and the one was a child? Would you pull the lever then?
... what if the five people were convicted felons, and the one was not? Would you pull the lever then?
... what if the five people were disabled, and the one person was an Olympic athlete? Would you pull the lever then?
... what if instead of one person, it was four people? Would you pull the lever then?
... what if instead of five people, it was a critically endangered bird, whose death might doom its species to extinction? Would you pull the lever then?
The one that sticks in my head is, let's go back to the baseline version - a trolley is careening out of control towards five people, and you can intervene to shift it to the track where it will kill one person. Did you say yes to that?
Now imagine there are five terminally ill people who need a heart transplant, a liver transplant, a lung transplant, and two kidney transplants, or they'll die. Meanwhile, there is a perfectly healthy adult in front of you with fully functional organs that are a perfect match for these five people. Would you kill that healthy adult and distribute their organs to the five sick people, saving their lives?
If you said no to that, but yes to pulling the trolley lever... why? The logic is the same: kill one person who would otherwise have lived, in order to save five people who would otherwise have died. But it feels different, doesn't it? Why?
That's what the Trolley Problem is for. It's a deliberately contrived ethical thought experiment to draw out our values, our feelings, and how we apply our values about people's lives when we make decisions - and maybe make us face the realization that we have some gut feelings about the value of some lives over others, and make us ask ourselves why we feel that way.
It's applied to hospital triage situations about who to treat first, and to decisions when programming self-driving cars in a crash scenario of whether to prioritize the safety of a pedestrian or the driver.
And it exists so that once you realize the way you're thinking about this, you then have to turn the question to the trade-offs we actually make in society.
... what if instead of five people, it was seven million people, and on the other track, instead of one person, it was The Economy?
... what if instead of five people, it was 7,500 people, and on the other track, instead of one person, it's letting car companies do what they want forever?
... what if instead of five people, it was 1,000 people, and on the other track, instead of one person, it was police budgets and police immunity?
... what if instead of five people, it was a ground invasion of Japan, and on the other track, instead of one person, it was 140,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
... what if instead of five people, it was 251 hostages, and on the other track, instead of one person, it was the entire population of Gaza?
These are treated as acceptable tradeoffs, as things that are acceptable sacrifices for the other. And it's up to us to ask. Is this an acceptable trade-off. And is it really a Trolley Problem the way that the people in power want us to believe it is, with no other options.
thank you for explaining so thoroughly. i have been getting mad about this for so long.
my favorite iteration is the one where the one person is someone you love. i think that's a really important one to highlight that so-called "rationality" isn't objectively more moral or defensible than being human. anyone who says they'd willingly sacrifice their loved one to save a bunch of strangers is a lisr who's just trying to earn morality brownie points, a thing that is normal to want and possible to achieve.
i am super duper appreciative of ao3 and the shit they have to put up with for us assholes
but i’d really like to request a function where you can say ‘ok i want this pairing at this rating with this tag bUT I DONT WANNA SEE THIS VERY PARTICULAR TAG AND THIS VERY PARTICULAR TAG MIGHT BE DESTIEL’
This function exists! The links below all describe the same basic task (removing a tag from your search results), based on different goals or comfort levels with AO3. If you know AO3 really well, try the first 3 sets of links. If not so well, try the last 3. (Dizmo’s has pictures so is possibly easiest.)
Good luck, and drop me an ask if you get stuck!
The Search Within Results Field and You, Part 1
The Search Within Results Field and You, Part 2
The Search Within Results Field and You, Round Up
Jan’s 7-Step Tutorial on how to filter out Characters and/or Relationships on AO3
(Note that the first link contains some other nifty things you can do with the filters, like showing only one-shots, or works above a certain word count, or only your private bookmarks. \o/)
I super recommend that once you find the perfect search string for you, you bookmark that search page. Then in the future you can go to that bookmark and re-run the search again, and see the new fics that have showed up without the stuff you don’t want.
Props to AO3 for caring about the fans with abuse-related triggers that often get mocked and/or ignored because it gets in the way of a fanbase’s aesthetic.
as someone who works with metadata and databases every day, I gotta say, AO3′s functionality is the shit. I wish my work databases were this easy to work with.
dear usamerican high schoolers looking for a way to resist fascism: sit through the pledge of allegiance.
no getting up. no looking at the flag.
everyone will be looking at you. you'll be sweating like a fucking hippopotamus. your teacher will sternly tell you to get up. you'll feel stupid and that maybe its not worth it because you're just a kid in a classroom. but I'm here to remind you that there are no real life consequences to detention. there are however real life consequences to resisting a thoughtless performance of nationalism.
Last year, I befriended a Catholic seminarian. We've gotten to be pretty decent friends. Seeing as he was staying in town for the summer and I wasn't, I entrusted him with caring for my plant.
He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"
"What?"
He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"
"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."
Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.
Listen, totally cool. My plant becoming Catholic is a great deal for her not dying over the summer. But now I must navigate this interfaith household. Keep me in your thoughts.
I should also add- I ran into my rabbi and explained the situation. I then asked, earnestly, if there was a remedy. A mikveh of sorts, or a beit din, or something.
He turned to me, sighed, and said in a very deadpan tone-- "Plants don't have covenants, Joy,"
So Theodora's a free agent according to rabbinic opinion. I guess I'll permit her to be Roman Catholic.
[id: photo of a beautiful houseplant with large oblong leaves in three shades of green with red veins visible on the front of the leaves. The lightest green zigzags along the center of the leaf, making the red really pop.]/end id.
Artist who's only fucking me for reference material: yeahhh 🥵🥵 would be even hotter if you moved closer to the light source and moved your head to a 3/4 view in the pic
"dni if you engage with irredeemable media! dni to kill a mockingbird stans" ok well CLEARLY you have never read to kill a mockingbird if you think it's irredeemable media and also having a book that was published in 1960 on your dni stan list is kinda ridiculous actually
"Here’s a trick I learned during the Obama presidency for handling certain types of political labels.
Take, as an example, the Tea Party claim that Obama is a Communist. Don’t take the word of the person making the claim (Tea Partiers). Don’t rely on the rebuttal of the target (Obama), because that will just be dismissed. Go to the group itself (Communists) and ask them. Ask an actual Communist if Obama is a comrade and see how they answer. Watch as they laugh at you, then explain in great detail how they wish there was a Communist in the White House, but here’s a long and exhaustive list of why that just isn’t so.
Now apply this logic to the claim that Hillary is pretty much the same as a Republican. Ask an actual Republican if they think Hillary Clinton is one of them. Watch them laugh, and then explain in the same exhausting detail why that just isn’t so. Some of them might concede that she’s better than Trump, but that’s not the same thing.
Finally, go ask a White Supremacist if Trump is one of them. As they excitedly explain how Trump is the guy they’ve been waiting for all these years, and how he’s really empowered their movement, use this to guide how you will be voting in November."
Source: a 2016 facebook posts by Craig Enan, since then deleted (OG link here)
